Despite having numerous characters I have always perceived BS/Ench as a means of "breaking" the game. With my current character I have decided to discard this predisposed perspective & use both skill trees. Here is my concern.

At what point does BS/Ench become cheating?

While there is somewhat of a limit on quality of items you can create, this can be surpassed with the use of items with modifiers that improve the quality of smithing/enchanting by (x)%.

So for example before crafting a dragonbone weapon you could be wearing a iron helmet, gauntlets, boots, chestpiece, that all improve smithing quality. You could also have ring/amulet that improve it as well.

This could be taken even further if you created a full set of +% enchanting equipment & made another set of armor that increases +% enchanting & so on & so forth for improving the quality of weapons/enchants endlessly.

Edit: I forgot there are potions that add to this as well.

Now I know its a single player game & none of this matter, but I also don't want to break the very fabric/essence of the game. I want to be able to make legendary equipment etc, but don't want to be 1 shotting Alduin.

What is the happy medium/What do you perceive as a reasonable limit to these 2 skill trees? Ideally I want to posses artifacts that could possibly exist in Skyrim.

I'd say as long as you don't use exploits like restoration loop, it's not cheating.

Just keep Your characters Smithing and Enchanting Skill below Your characters Main Attack Skill, and only use found Enchanted Gear and Potions to improve Your characters Smithing and Enchanting.

This is a wonderful idea. This will make looting dungeons that much more exciting, in hopes of getting +enchanting/smithing gear.

I understand what you are trying to say. However, I don't think the term "cheating" is appropriate.

As far as a medium? I'd start with suggesting that one turn up the difficulty. I can guarantee that you will be scraping to advance not only the Smithing and Enchanting skills, but Alchemy as well.

The real issue with becoming OP'd is when one surpasses the Legendary status on weapons and armor. I'm not convinced in the slightest that it was the initial intent for the developers to allow improvement beyond that point. That being said, I only improve to Legendary and stop.

Does increasing the difficulty decrease quality/quantity of loot? Or does it increase the cost of goods from merchants etc? I am playing at expert atm. The reason I have chosen not to put it on higher difficulties is from my previous experience with Bethesda games like Fallout etc, increased difficulty simply meant increasing enemies HP by a s-ton. I never liked the concept of shooting a bandit in the head with 7 arrows & have him still running at me like he was fine. If it effects more than enemy hp/damage output that would be very interesting indeed.

Yes. That's always my goal. Without looting dungeons, it just becomes an exercise in killing whatever is in them. The excitement of finding that one enchanted piece of armour that completes your set is gone... and that sorta svcks.

Restricting yourself to one trade skill (smithing or alchemy or enchanting) is a good way to ensure you don't break the game. At the higher two tiers of difficulty, it's more reasonable to use say 2 trade skills on Master & even all 3 on Legendary difficulties.

Putting the difficulty up just effects the amount of damage you do & enemies can inflict. SO at higher levels, it will take you many more hits to kill something, while in turn it takes less hit for the enemy to kill you.

Difficulty | Damage Dealt | Damage Taken
-----------------------------------------
Novice | x2 | x0.5
Apprentice | x1.5 | x0.75
Adept | x1 | x1
Expert | x0.75 | x1.5
Master | x0.5 | x2
Legendary | x0.25 | x3

I don't see where is the problem if your character take the two trees (smithing and enchanting) as long as you don't use enchanted stuff to improve your smithing skills. My current character chose smithing and alchemy but he'll never use potions that improve his smithing skills; he'll sell them instead.

Smithing/Enchanting will break the game, if you focus on just damage. But it's not the only thing you can do with them. For example:

• If you use enchanted crafting equipment, you don't really have to use fortify combat skill enchants on armor. This, frees up slots for magic resistance, health/stamina/magicka increase or regen and other enchants you'd like to, but couldn't have otherwise.
• If you use a crafted smithing potion on top, you don't have to use elemental enchants on your weapons, if you don't want to. You can also leave the potion out, if you feel you're fine.
• You can use smithing/enchanting and don't take armsman 5/5 for example, but 1/5 and use a combination of tempered weapons and fortify combat skill enchants to compensate. This, frees up 4 perk points you can use elsewhere.

Think about it

Its entirely up to you to decide whats cheating. I dont think its cheating bu any means. But i do think you can become OP if youre not careful.

My opinion of this is: Use smithing and enchanting when it is natural for the char to do so. If the char is suppose to have some knowledge of these skills it is only natural that he/she uses them. Improve his/her own weapons and gear for instance.
And if the char is suppose to have a profession in one of these skills, it is only natural to become great in it.

Like was posted earlier. It only affects the damage dealt to the PC and the damage taken by the PC. It doesn't affect loot, enemy HP or anything else, I'm sad to say.

Nonetheless, If you just improve to Legendary and then stop, it will solve your concern of being OP'd. You won't need to employ any technical measures to micro manage your skill levels.

This is one example of why I love TES games. There are so many ways to tweak them in game to make your gameplay as difficult or God Mode to your heart's content.

Having the option of the crafting skills is another way of putting the game in my hands.

When the amount of damage taken or delivered makes the game boring for you then you've gone too far. I've found that no matter how hard I make my character hit, it's the amount of damage I can take that makes the most difference most of the time.